The Lesko Tale
by Sora Keyes
Summary: A story of two siblings, neither entirely noble nor entirely volatile, that lived within the realm of the Baudelaires' world. Their journeys may answer many of the questions that linger within the mysteries of V.F.D., and the Baudelaires' past.


**Part 1: Introducing Lesley and Leonard Lesko.**

Chapter One

_There is a story that has not been told. A story of two siblings, neither entirely noble nor entirely volatile, that lived within the realm of the Baudelaires' world. Their journeys may answer many of the questions that linger within the tales of the Baudelaire Orphans, and though neither the Leskos nor the Baudelaires ever spoke face to face, their paths were intertwined by the destiny of this unfolding tale. This is their story._

It began, like many stories, with an almost unnoticeable change in the schedule of things. Lesley and Leonard Lesko were eating their fruit and bran cereal, when their father, Louis Lesko came storming down the hallway of their home. His hair was wild, eyes ablaze, and he was still wearing parts of his pyjamas. He was muttering loudly, shifting from foot to foot in anxiety. Complaining that he was to be late for the important Council of Elders meeting at the Town Hall. Louis Lesko had never missed a single meeting this year, and didn't intend to break his spotless record.

Now before we begin, one must explain the entity that was Louis Lesko. Louis Lesko was a man of many qualities, but tolerance and patience were not part of any of them. For nearly twenty years Mr. Lesko had never questioned the limitations of his environment. This of course, made him an ideal candidate for one of the Council of Elders' roles in the future. Mr. Lesko pounded into his children's heads the importance of him becoming a member of the Council of Elders, and receiving the honor of wearing the holy hat of VFD. It was his _raison d'être,_ a term which here means 'reason for living into his eighties - the average age of Council members'. Dutifully, the Lesko children accepted their father's desire. They had known nothing else. Neither child had ever seen beyond the borders of the Village of Fowl Devotees, though both knew the other wanted to. Mr. Lesko would never allow it. The only way to get out of the Village of Fowl Devotees was by way of some sort of vehicle, an object which of course was strictly forbidden to be used under the rules of V.F.D. No mechanical devices were allowed. The children pointed out to their father one day that they could cycle out of the town for a trip, but Mr. Lesko promptly informed them that Rule Number 85 stated that a person may not cycle more than one thousand and fifty three meters in one direction without making a turn back the way they had come from and cycling the equivalent distance back. Both Lesley and Leonard found that almost impossible to understand, but accepted it with the blind faith that were instructed to have.

Their father bolted out of the door with half a granola bar hanging from his mouth, and both Lesko children had to bite their tongues to stop themselves from laughing at the hilarity of their father's predicament. Toilet paper hung most unattractively from his left slipper. The door slammed behind Mr. Lesko, and he was gone.

The two children quickly finished the food, did the dishes and then walked out onto their front porch, gazing out upon the town. Mr. Verhoogan waved from across the street, as he continued on a power walk with his dog. Leaves of Autumn wafted through the air, making the roads a multi-tonal carpet of cobblestones and colors. Lesley and Leonard both cared for the town of their birth, but deep down, both were bored with it. Nothing ever changed, and nothing was ever allowed to change. If the town had allowed televisions, the children would think of the situation as 'The Twilight Zone Syndrome' .

"So what's on the agenda today Leonard?" Lesley asked briskly, jumping to her feet.

Leonard raised his eyebrows.

"Agenda?" he asked, "Who has an agenda in a town where there is nothing to do but watch the crows fly by?"

"Surely there must be _something_ to do." she said wistfully. "Perhaps we could venture onto a journey?"

Leonard scoffed. "Where to? The Eastern Ice Cream Shop? The other side of Hector's house? Up to Fowl Fountain? We've been every place this town has to offer us Lesley."

It was true. There was only so many times one could explore a museum of crow's feathers.

Lesley looked at him with desperation. "I know that Leonard. I KNOW that. But it is the summer holidays and there has got to be something out there we haven't tried at max…..three or four times."

One might be asking oneself why the two Leskos did not try to meet with friends they might have had in the town. One might fine the answer was that neither Lesko had many friends. Both were very different from the other children in the town. Neither child was content with the very limited education they received at school. Both children asked too many questions about the world outside V.F.D.

Leonard, during one eventful class, enquired how their history books could have been made without mechanical devices. His teacher, an excessively crabby Elder named Trudy, barked that the books had been made outside the town. Leonard innocently pressed for more details, and asked the million dollar question. Why was it fine for V.F.D. to use things made _with_ mechanical devices, but not use the devices themselves?

Leonard spent the next week's of lunchtimes in detention.

As an effect, many families, while not making it blatantly obvious, withheld permission for their children to associate with the Lesko kids.

Lesley suddenly got a glinting look within her eyes, a look that Leonard knew all too well. Lesley grabbed Leonard by the wrist and hoisted him to his feet.

"You want something we've _never_ done before? Well I know just the place, and just the thing we should visit and do." She smiled, in an almost sinister manner, and pulled the confused Leonard with her.

"We're going to eavesdrop on the official Council of Elders meeting."

By the time the Lesko siblings arrived at the Town Hall, the doors had already been shut, and by the murmuring they could hear from behind the wood, the meeting was well underway. The wide doors of the Town Hall were very thick, and quite dense. It was almost impossible to hear anything clear without actually opening the door.

"Darn, we've come to late!" Lesley stamped her foot angrily into the dust. They could make out faintly the name 'Officer Luciana' but besides that, it was one or two words that made no sense by themselves.

"ORDER! ORDER!" Both children jumped as the clanking of a gravel hit a desk from within. The children could only guess it meant the end of the meeting and ran to hide behind the Town Hall sign. Several crows that were roosting their ruffled their feathers and flew off, causing the children to be temporarily blinded.

When the crows were finally gone, no-one had exited the Hall, but almost out of thin air, three care-worn children had appeared at the front steps. They clearly had been through quite an ordeal, because they were sunburnt, dustier than the desert floor, and their expressions were ones of gloom and anxiety. The oldest child appeared to be Lesley's age, while the younger male was perhaps a year younger than Leonard. The smallest one was hardly older than a toddler, perhaps one or two years of age. All three waiting with some sort of anticipation outside the doors, and talking to themselves.

"What's the matter?" the male said to his older sister.

"Nothing, I'm just a little skittish. After all, this is the Town Hall of V.F.D. For all we know, behind this door may be the secret we've been looking for since the Quagmires were first kidnapped." the older girl said with her hand in the air.

"Maybe we shouldn't get our hopes up," the boy said. "Remember, when we lived with the Squalors, we thought we had solved the V.F.D. mystery, but we were wrong. We could be wrong this time, too."

Both Lesko siblings looked at each other in utter bafflement. Who were these children? None of them lived in the village, that was certain. Where had they come from? And what was this 'mystery of V.F.D.'? There wasn't anything mysterious about the Village of Fowl Devotees. It was a bland town, well outside the city, without anything vaguely mysterious. What sort of secret were they on about?

The three children continued to bicker for a few moments, before the youngest one crawled over to the door, and knocked loudly. There was a pause, then it appeared that someone had answered from within, and the three children entered, cautiously.

"What on Earth was that about?" Leonard said, standing from behind the sign to stretch his stiff legs, and shoo the crows that surrounded him.

"I have absolutely no idea. Have you seen those kids before?" Lesley responded quietly.

"Nope. Never." Leonard responded, "But they clearly know something about our village that we don't, and it sounds sinister."

Lesley nodded. "I know. They weren't certain that this was the place the secret originated from though; they seemed in two minds about it."

The two Lesko's walked closer to the door, and tried to listen in again. They could catch the voice of their father, clearly complaining indignantly about something, but besides that it was just garbled words from members of the Council, Mrs. Morrow (a rather tedious neighbor of theirs), and the children themselves. After a few minutes there was a great cheer of "Hear, Hear!" , and then the sound of the doors being pushed open. Lesley grabbed Leonard by the sleeve and they both dive bombed behind the sign, just barely making it before the doors were opened wide, and Hector, the quiet local caretaker, and the three children exited.

"Oh blast it!" Lesley muttered again as they were hit with the flurry and fury of all the crows around them lifting up in almost unison, and flying up towards the circle growing above. For a moment both children were exposed, but the caretaker and strange children were too engaged in the murder above to notice. The Leskos nodded, and both bolted for their home, running behind the troupe in the road, and not stopping until they were at the footsteps of their porch.

"That was seriously better than anything we've done in a while!" panted Leonard.

"It's just the start." Lesley said with wide eyes. "These are the first new children in this town that we've met. They clearly know about something interesting in this town, and I think we need to find out what it is. Lets go meet them tomorrow." Leonard raised his eyes at such a forward statement, but agreed, and both children quietly retired into their home, both dwelling on the mysterious new children, and the possibly mysterious mystery of their own mediocre V.F.D.

The next morning was alarmingly uneventful. Both Lesko children had not heard hide nor here of the peculiar threesome. When they had interrogated their father about them after the meeting, (claiming of course, to know of them through the Verhoogan children's gossipy mother) all he could say was that they were new residents of the village, and 'Most definitely _not_ our problem.'. Their father refused to speak anymore about it, and had left for work almost as soon as he had returned from the Hall. The rest of the previous day had been blasé at best, but now it was a new day, and like that which would come to the Baudelaires in Nevermore Tree, revelation came to the Leskos that very morning.

"Children," Mr. Lesko said while sipping his coffee, and reading his latest edition of _The Daily Punctillio_ "The new orphans will be coming by today to clean our windows, as part of their daily chore rostra. I want you to make sure nothing...valuable is left outside." Louis said this last bit with an attempt at an ambiguous tone, but only ended up sounding even more untrustworthy and rude. It was a well known fact that Louis Lesko was the town bigot, sexist, and xenophobe, but seeing as most people is the town were to a degree the same way, it was left unchastised.

Both Lesko children looked at one another in excitement.

"We'll get to meet them?" Leonard asked, trying not to sound too pleased.

Mr. Lesko raised his head from the newspaper with an annoyed look. "I don't know why you children care so much about [i]orphans[/i], and filthy city ones at that, but I'm most certainly NOT going to let you spend time with them. They have already violated rules at the Town meeting, and I DONT want you to be influenced or misguided in any way by their actions. Having you be burned at the stake would not give me a good chance at being in line for a Council of Elders position."

Lesley and Leonard looked gravely at one another. "So...what are you going to have us so for the day then?" Lesley asked.

Mr. Lesko smiled. "I cooked up something fun. You get to go bakery and help Mr. Ferrywhether bake me four dozen branberry muffins that I can give to the council of Elders as a bribe...I mean as a gift to show my appreciation of all that they do for us."

The Lesko children had very limited respect for their father's morals or his sycophantic personality, and both were very tired of his lack of interest in any elements of their own lives. They dealt with him all the same though, and dutifully finished their bran; and walked the long stroll to the VFD Bakery.

"This sucks BAD." Lesley said, stuffing her hands in her overall pockets and kicking the stones in the street. "Why does dad have to be such a suck up all the time?"

"Why do we have to deal with his idiocy is more the question." Leonard said, kicking the stones with the same ferocity. "I wish mum was still around. She'd let us do whatever we wanted."

The Lesko mother, Leanne, had left her children a few years ago, when the strains of VFD life had become to tight. She and their father were never terribly close, and both children had always suspected that the only reason they had stayed together was because of them. But even the delights of children could not hold back the dreams of a woman, and one day Leanne Lesko left the table at dinner, packed her bags without a word, hugged her children and left for anywhere, and everywhere.

The children continued towards the bakery, but stopped abruptly when they heard a loud commotion coming from down the nearest street to them. Both turned and walked in that direction, and found that a small group of people, consisting mainly of Council of Elders members, gathered around something. The children's eyes widened, and they pushed gently into the crowd to see what was going on.

At the centre of the ruckus was a tall, lanky man, dressed in a rather nice looking suit that was quickly being battered by the townspeople who were hitting it. The man appeared to be trying to escape the restraints being placed upon him by a woman who could only be the new Chief of Police, Officer Luciana. The man, who's feet were bare, was trying to plead with the people around him to let him go, but no-one was listening. They were all crying "Murderer, Murderer, we must tie up Omar the murderer!" and shoving the poor man every chance they got.

"Please!" he cried out in distress, "I am not a murderer! My name is Jacques Snicket, I work for an organization in the city..."

"An organization of arson and MURDER!" one of the Elders cried out triumphantly.

"No! I work for a noble group of people, against fire and murder at all costs! I'm looking for the children, the Baudelaire children! I need to tell them something impor..." it was at that moment that Luciana put her gloved hand over the man's mouth and began to drag him away, with chants of "Murderer, tie up Omar the murderer!" following their footsteps. Just before he was absorbed into the growing crowd, the Lesko children caught sight of the man's left ankle, where with great presence, a tattoo of an eye was located; a tattoo that looked up at the children with what seemed to be an expression as painful and sad as that of the man it was drawn upon. The children did not follow the crowd, but watched their progress up the road, until they were past the sightline and off towards the Town Hall.

"Who was that man? Leonard asked after a pause.

"How the heck am I supposed to know?" Lesley said looking at him sternly. "That guy is a murderer. Or something else. Who was it that he said he was looking for?"

Leonard thought for a moment then said, "It was Baudelaire I think. The Baudelaire children. Do you think….?"

Lesley nodded at once. The two had to be connected. The Leskos now had new children, a mysterious murderer, and a puzzle about their town, and this time; freshly made bran muffins were not going to deter them from finding out just what on Earth was going on.


End file.
